Renee Zellweger stepped onto the red carpet at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event on Oct. 20 with a face that looked drastically different than it did in her “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Jerry Maguire” days. She looked much older and surgically altered. Since then, people have not stopped talking about Zellweger’s appearance. It seems that in Hollywood, a woman cannot age naturally without being criticized or pressured to have plastic surgery to remain desirable in the industry. With age comes the predicted demise of an actress’s career.

Paul Newman can age and Brad Pitt can age, but Renee Zellweger and other actresses cannot age as easily. Sexism in Hollywood extends far beyond Zellweger’s face and the discussion of impossible beauty standards. For many reasons, Hollywood is a less than hospitable place for women.

On camera, women face a great deal of discrimination. The Geena Davis Institute released new research on Sept. 22 that confirmed women in Hollywood are severely discriminated against on camera. The report, which accounted for films that were theatrically released between January 1, 2010 and May 1, 2013, found that women are grotesquely underrepresented. There was one female character for every 2.24 male characters, and only 30.9 percent of speaking characters were female. The report also found that the characters women do play tend to not be strong, independent characters.

Female doctors, judges, lawyers and executives are almost never depicted. Instead, women are featured in roles where their characters are not pivotal to the development of the story. In some cases, a woman is casted in a role where her character’s only purpose is to act as a device for a male protagonist’s self-realization. Film critic Nathan Raban described this trope by coining the term “manic pixie dream girl.”

The research also shows patterns of hypersexualzation among women on screen. It persists in both television and film for many actresses, regardless of whether they are 13 or 39. Women are overly made up and promiscuously dressed across genres — indie films, romantic comedies, blockbuster adventure movies and more. In addition, female characters continuously appear nude more frequently in films than men.

Moreover, a serious wage gap exists between actresses and their male counterparts. Forbes’ 2013 Highest Paid Actors and Actresses Lists revealed that while the distinguished actresses made a combined total of $181 million, male actors made nearly two and a half times more, totaling $456 million. Additionally, according to a study published on Jan. 28, once female actors reach age 34 they are paid considerably less than male actors. Male movie stars peak financially at 51 and continue to earn more overtime while actresses peak at 34 and earn less as the years go on. The roles offered to actresses also decrease drastically as they age. Actresses who manage to hold onto to their stardom later in life are more often offered parts that solely cater to their age and not their skill. Male actors, on the other hand, see no change in the amount of roles available to them.

Furthermore, the Geena Davis Institute research reported that discrimination continues off-camera with female directors and actresses both underrepresented and underpaid. Among films released between January 1, 2010 and May 1, 2013, only 7 percent of 1,452 filmmakers were female, while only 19 percent of writers and 22 percent of producers were women. This could help explain why depictions of women have been stagnant.

Discrimination against women in Hollywood is a discouraging manifestation of the rampant and infuriating discrimination of women in society. Film fanatics cannot expect Hollywood to become a more female-friendly environment when societal factors perpetuate regressive results. The notion that women and men should be judged on cinematic skill and acting ability rather than sex appeal and youth appearance is far from being realized. For an industry that is often touted as progressive, Hollywood still has far to go in eliminating discrimination against women.

Email Lena Rawley at [email protected].